Relationship between temperature and growth rate of bacterial cultures

Abstract

The Arrhenius Law, which was originally proposed to describe the temperature dependence of the specific reaction rate constant in chemical reactions, does not adequately describe the effect of temperature on bacterial growth. Microbiologists have attempted to apply a modified version of this law to bacterial growth by replacing the reaction rate constant by the growth rate constant, but the modified law relationship fits data poorly, as graphs of the logarithm of the growth rate constant against reciprocal absolute temperature result in curves rather than straight lines. Instead, a linear relationship between in square root of growth rate constant (r) and temperature (T), namely, square root = b (T - T0), where b is the regression coefficient and T0 is a hypothetical temperature which is an intrinsic property of the organism, is proposed and found to apply to the growth of a wide range of bacteria. The relationship is also applicable to nucleotide breakdown and to the growth of yeast and molds.

Cold snaps, heatwaves, and arthropod growth

“…where Ω[T(t)] is the temperature-dependent growth rate, with units mass 1/3 /time. We use the Ratkowsky curve (Ratkowsky et al, 1982(Ratkowsky et al, , 1983(Ratkowsky et al, , 2005McMeekin et al, 1993) to characterize temperature-dependent growth…”

Testing the metabolic theory of ecology with marine bacteria: different temperature sensitivity of major phylogenetic groups during the spring phytoplankton bloom

“…Yet, marine bacterial communities are highly diverse, and some of the widespread, abundant groups are markedly different ranging from oligotrophs to copiotrophs (Koch, 2001;Lauro et al, 2009;Yooseph et al, 2010). Although disparity in the in situ growth rates of different phylogenetic groups of marine bacteria, such as SAR11, Rhodobacteraceae, Gammaproteobacteria and Bacteroidetes, has been reported previously in a few studies (see review in Kirchman, 2016), the temperature-sensitivity of specific taxa is unclear and it has been addressed mostly with bacterial isolates (Ratkowsky et al, 1982;Cho and Giovannoni, 2004). Thus, our knowledge of how temperature affects the growth and carrying capacity of dominant phylogenetic groups of environmental bacterial communities is still very limited.…”

Challenges in developing methods for quantifying the effects of weather and climate on water-associated diseases: A systematic review

“…The required time t res , for the pathogen population in the reservoir to replicate and reach a sufficient value to cause infections, depends on a range of environmental and microbiological factors specific to the pathogen under investigation. Methods to estimate this time and its distribution are beyond the scope of this Review; here we simple mention some mechanistic approaches and a separate published review for temperature-driven bacterial growth in food and in water drinking systems [49][50][51][52][53]. The required time t exp , for susceptible individuals to be infected after being exposed to the pathogen reservoir, depends on the particular route of transmission and type of exposure.…”